Datsik and Bais Haus’s Ephwurd project has had a long and storied history. The project had its first big hit alongside Jauz on 2015’s “Rock the Party” and since then the duo have continued to release relentlessly heavy hitting bass house bombs. We sat down with the duo ahead of the release of their new track “Phunky Beats” to pick their brain on the current state of EDM and to hear the plans for their newly formed label, Eph’d Up Records.

How did the Ephwurd project come together?

We met through Steve Aoki at Identity Fest back in like 2009. We started touring together about 2 years later, and started writing songs on the road. Eventually we had enough material to actually make it into a real project and thus Ephwurd was born!

What inspired you to start your own label?

As artists who enjoy a broad range of music going from the most hype tunes to the most chill, we wanted to be able to freely give music to our fans without the time constraints of a label. Sometimes we finish a song and it won’t be months until you, the fans, get to hear what we have been working on and its such a huge bummer. Eph’d Up Records gives us the freedom to give you folks music when we want and when you deserve it, because life is happening now and it’s not set on some schedule.

What differentiates what you are trying to do from the other artist-backed labels out there?

We are just trying to push our own music at the moment for the next few months. Then after that we will start pushing music that we love. There is a ton of music being put out these days but to be honest we aren’t crazy about a lot of it. This label gives us the opportunity to showcase the tracks that we love pure and simple.

How would you describe the sound and style of the label — what sort of artists and tracks are you looking for? What artists are you most excited about?

The sound will determine itself in time. Its pretty much anything that we would want to play in our sets. Recently we have been into a lot of newer artists. Been big fans of Michael White and Oneeva lately, you should definitely check em out. The Michael White bass house stuff is top notch and Oneeva just has this unique sound to them thats super catchy. Time will tell though, we like a lot of different stuff and don’t really want to get painted in any corner.

Do you have a plan for releases? Monthly? Weekly? Will all the releases be free downloads?

We will be releasing new Ephwurd music every 3-4 weeks til the end of the year. Been working on stuff all year and we are finally in a comfortable spot to share it with the world. For now it will all be FREE!!!

With Soundcloud’s user base continuing to shrink and Spotify and its top playlists being controlled by the labels, how do you plan to get the music out there? Have you found it to be a challenge?

Spotify, like any other platform, takes some time to figure the ins and outs. We like Spotify because you have to build relationships with the people that curate these big playlists and thats nice because you are just making friends with people who love music and we never see that as a bad thing.

What sort of sounds are you vibing with in 2017? Where do you see the genre headed after the future bass trend dies down?

Good question. Genres come and go and within each of those genres like 4-5 artists will remain on top and have a good career with their music and sound. As far as where it will go… who knows? If we could predict that we would be headlining every major festival in the world… but thats no fun. The mystery of what will be “cool” next year is the exciting part of life. I love hearing someone come up with a new sound which ends up becoming a whole new genre. That’s what happened with us in 2015 and we are so grateful that we have been able to tour the world and play to thousands of people. Right now we have been vibing with so much different music. At the end of the day if its sick who cares about anything else. There are like 4000 sub genres now and we are too tired to be a genre aficionados.

Check out the first official release on their label “Phunky Beats” and stayed tuned for more from Eph’d Up Records.

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